Melchiorites

a sect of Anabaptists that arose in the early 1530’s in Germany and the Netherlands.

The sect was founded by the Southern German Anabaptist Melchior Hofmann (who died c. 1543). Hofmann preached the doctrine of the second coming of Christ and the establishment of the “millennial reign of Christ” on the earth; he counted on the intervention of “forces from the other world” to accomplish this. A cataclysm was predicted for 1533, and the city of Strasbourg (the chief center of the Melchiorite movement) was announced as the initial point for the upheaval. The Melchiorite doctrine became a transitional stage toward revolutionary Ana-baptism, which became prevalent in Westphalia and the northern Netherlands.